Customer Support
“At the end of the day, it’s not just about managing reviews — it’s about building trust, increasing retention, and making smarter decisions for our communities. Reputation Management has helped us do all of that, and I wouldn’t want to go back to managing it any other way.”
Sara Woods
Director of Brand, Marketing, and Customer Experience
Overview
HILLS Properties is a multifamily real estate company that develops, owns, and manages luxury apartment communities across Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, with a commitment to quality, innovation, and resident experience. What sets HILLS apart is its in-house, hands-on approach — from development and construction to management — ensuring exceptional customer service, modern amenities, and thoughtfully designed living spaces tailored to today’s renters. Their commitment: Creating communities that feel like home.
As the Director of Brand, Marketing, and Customer Experience at HILLS Properties, Sara Woods’ role is to ensure their marketing efforts are reflected in the resident journey. She leads a team focused on building a strong digital presence, optimizing advertising, and enhancing communication with prospects and residents.
Company Profile
Types of Assets Managed: Luxury A and A+ properties
Unit Count: 6,800
Headquarters: Cincinnati, Ohio
Years in Business: 67
Number of Employees: 210
Beyond attracting new residents, Sara prioritizes creating meaningful experiences that drive long-term engagement, working closely with onsite teams, leadership, and technology partners to ensure their strategies are both effective and easy to implement. Integral to her role and responsibilities are Sara Hendricks, Vice President of Property Management, and Stacy Lonsbury, Portfolio Support Specialist, who each handle different facets of policy compliance, training, and operational integrity.
Working collaboratively, they drive occupancy, retention, and brand reputation by strategically marketing HILLS communities to attract the right prospects. Leveraging data and technology to make informed decisions, they are able to enhance the customer experience, strengthening resident relationships that lead to renewals and referrals. From tracking trends and refining advertising to coaching teams on engagement, their efforts improve the resident journey and boost operational efficiency.
Because each is laser-focused on elevating the HILLS brand, supporting onsite teams, and ensuring that the marketing and customer experience go hand in hand to drive long-term success, they began to recognize the need for a solution that would streamline and operationalize their approach to reputation management.
Challenge
Before implementing Grace Hill’s Reputation Management solution, Sara and the HILLS Properties team had limited information readily available to fully understand the customer experience. Without a comprehensive view, efforts to enhance service overall were difficult, and these blind spots hindered their ability to make data-driven decisions that could positively impact customer satisfaction and retention.
Additionally, the team struggled with the absence of a “big picture” perspective that could help them elevate customer service and engagement across all properties. Since their previous reputation management tool failed to solve the challenges they were having, they knew a change was necessary.
Recognizing the opportunity to address these longstanding challenges with a more robust tool, the previous Marketing Coordinator introduced the Grace Hill Reputation Management solution to HILLS’s leadership team. This strategic move marked a turning point in their approach to reputation management, setting the stage for a more proactive and informed customer engagement strategy.
Solution
Although they vetted multiple vendors, they ultimately chose Grace Hill’s Reputation Management as the best solution for their needs.
“We chose Grace Hill’s Reputation Management solution because it provided a comprehensive and actionable approach to resident feedback that aligned with our customer experience strategy,” said Sara. “We needed a platform that could centralize data, provide deeper insights, and drive real improvements at our communities rather than just aggregating reviews.”
What stood out for the HILLS team was the solution’s ability to pull data from multiple sources, including resident surveys and online reviews, giving them a complete picture of resident sentiment. The addition of the Local Brand Visibility (LBV) score and integration with Google Maps ranking data allowed HILLS additional transparency into how their reputation strategies were performing and where strategic adjustments were needed. And tools like Pulse AI have further enhanced their ability to analyze sentiment and engage more effectively, reinforcing that the decision they made was the right one.
“With ongoing data showing that reputation management is more important than ever in the renter journey, it was imperative that we had a structured approach to consistently monitor feedback, respond to reviews in a timely manner, and take actionable steps based on resident insights,” said Sara.
The implementation process was thorough, intentional, and designed for long-term success. Grace Hill led initial high-level training sessions for portfolio and property managers, followed by secondary training seminars specifically for property managers, focusing on how to manage their reputation effectively and set a standard for review responses.
The HILLS Properties team takes a multipronged approach to reinforcing accountability across teams, including:
- Monitoring response rates.
- Sending reminders to property managers with pending reviews.
- Incorporating solution training into their Leadership Summit as a dedicated session for property managers.
- Launching a monthly “Morning Marketing Power Hour” to maintain focus on engagement and customer experience.
- Monthly reporting of response rates, review volume, and average star ratings ensures they have clear insights into their progress.
Grace Hill’s Reputation Management was implemented four years ago, and today, it is an essential tool across multiple departments at HILLS Properties, including property management, marketing, and leadership.
By integrating Reputation Management across these key teams, they’ve created a proactive, data-driven approach that strengthens resident engagement and enhances the overall customer experience.
“One of my favorite features of Reputation Management is the AI-driven insights, particularly Pulse AI, risk monitoring, and the LBV score. These tools provide real-time sentiment analysis, allowing us to quickly assess resident feedback and prioritize responses where they matter most.”
- Sara Woods, Director of Brand, Marketing, and Customer Experience
Results
Since implementing Reputation Management, they’ve seen significant improvements across their portfolio in online reputation, engagement, and overall resident sentiment. The data speaks for itself — ratings have increased, response rates have improved, and they’re consistently driving a more positive resident experience.
In 2024, HILLS Properties’ overall rating reached 4.5, with 718 reviews submitted and a 90% response rate. Now they have over 595 five-star reviews, while lower-star reviews have decreased compared to previous years.
104%
Increase in Review Volume
(364 → 741 Reviews)
100%
Review Response Rate Increase
(44% → 88% Response Rate)
4.8%
Increase in Overall Rating
(4.2 → 4.4 Rating)
37%
Decrease in 1-Star Reviews
(113 → 71 1-Star Reviews)
The impact of Reputation Management is clear — Engagement has grown significantly, showing that their focus on customer experience, proactive feedback management, and strategic reputation efforts is paying off.
Before implementing Reputation Management, the primary metric Sara tracked was their overall star rating across review platforms. It gave them a general sense of how their communities were perceived, but it lacked the depth and actionable insights necessary to truly understand resident sentiment and make data-driven improvements.
After Reputation Management was implemented, HILLS now tracks the following:
- Review response rates – Ensuring timely engagement with residents and prospects.
- Number of reviews collected – Measuring overall engagement and visibility.
- Star rating breakdowns – Identifying trends in positive and negative feedback.
- LBV score – Providing a more comprehensive measure of reputation performance.
- Google Maps ranking – Understanding local search visibility and SEO impact.
- Pulse AI sentiment analysis – Helping quickly assess resident sentiment and key themes in feedback.
By tracking these insights, they have refined their approach, ensuring their communities maintain a strong online presence while delivering an exceptional resident experience.
“Beyond the numbers, this tool has helped us build trust with residents, strengthen our communities’ online presence, and ensure that feedback is used to drive real improvements,” added Sara. “Reputation Management has become a core part of our customer experience strategy — streamlining our processes, saving time, and boosting productivity, especially for onsite teams, who manage this alongside their already full plates — and the results prove its value.”
The Reputation Management features that the HILLS team depends on include:
- Risk Monitoring — This feature has helped them identify potentially sensitive or high-impact reviews early, ensuring they can proactively address concerns before they escalate. It gives their teams the ability to stay ahead of issues, protect their brand reputation, and show residents they are listening and taking action.
- LBV Score — Because it provides a clear, data-driven way to measure their reputation performance beyond review ratings, it helps them track how communities are perceived in the market and gives tangible insights into areas of potential improvement. By monitoring LBV alongside their Google Maps ranking, HILLS can fine-tune their SEO and reputation strategies to ensure communities remain highly visible in local Google searches.
- Pulse AI — For Sara and her team, this has been a game-changer, allowing them to quickly extract key themes, track sentiment trends, and craft professional responses more efficiently. Instead of manually analyzing reviews, they can now focus on engagement and improving the resident experience rather than just reacting to feedback.
The HILLS team now views reputation management as a core element of the resident experience rather than a box to check because it has improved productivity and allowed onsite staff to focus on meaningful engagement without being overwhelmed by administrative tasks.
Conclusion
The integration of Reputation Management into daily operations has not only enhanced HILLS Properties' online visibility but also contributed to stronger resident trust, improved retention rates, and increased leasing success. The solution has become a strategic asset that supports their customer experience mission at every level, helping tell the HILLS story through the voice of its residents, reinforcing the brand's commitment to delivering exceptional service and a sense of community.
By adopting a solution with real-time insights and a proactive strategy, they were able to strengthen their brand, build trust with prospects and residents, and make data-driven decisions that positively impacted their communities.
In closing, Sara shares this:
“At the end of the day, it’s not just about managing reviews — it’s about building trust, increasing retention, and making smarter decisions for our communities. Reputation Management has helped us do all of that, and I wouldn’t want to go back to managing it any other way.”
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